The Pentagon’s New Precision-Guided, Nuclear Budget Buster

On the radar: High accuracy, low yield, huge budget; Shoddy science; Decisions for the 2nd term; “Armageddon on a Budget”; Nukes and the NDAA; Japan’s plutonium buildup; Israeli BMD; and Mousavian on a grand bargain.

November 29th, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke

$10 billion bomb - The cash-strapped Pentagon just put a down payment on a $10 billion nuclear weapon upgrade to keep nuclear weapons in Europe, though top generals in the region see no military value in keeping them there. “All of which would make the push for the [B-61 mod 12] upgrades tough to fathom under almost any conditions. But it’s particularly odd now,” writes Noah Shachtman for Danger Room.

--”While the rest of the Defense Department is looking to save money, the costs for the mod 12 program keep going up,” notes Schachtman. In May, the project was estimated to cost $6 billion. By July, that number peaked $10 billion. That’s “the equivalent of two-thirds of what the federal government plans to spend on all nuclear weapon enhancements over the next twenty years.”

--”Pretty soon, there will be a choice: upgrade these nuclear weapons, or put them out to pasture. What would you do, if you were a cash-strapped Pentagon chief?” asks Schachtman. Full post here. http://bit.ly/QOXFqq

From tooth to tail kit - The $10 billion B61 program moved ahead with the Pentagon issuing a $178.6 million contract to Boeing to develop a tail kit for the nuclear bomb. The tail kit would provide the Air Force with a new precision-guided low-yield nuclear bomb by increasing the B-61’s accuracy and target kill capability.

--Congress cancelled such a program in 1994 due to worries that it would lead to more usable nuclear weapons. “Now the Air Force get’s a precision-guided nuclear bomb anyway,” writes Hans Kristensen at the Federation of American Scientists. http://bit.ly/QsyoB4

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About that Iran graph - The diagram of the physics of a nuclear explosion recently given to AP as evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons research, contains a nearly million-fold error in a calculation whose required scientific sophistication “corresponds to that typically found in graduate- or advanced undergraduate-level nuclear physics courses.”

--”While such a graphic, if authentic, may be a concern, it is not a cause for alarm,” explain Yousaf Butt and Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress in The Bulletin. http://bit.ly/SwfO9r

2nd term decisions - The Obama administration faces a number of nuclear security issues that will require prompt presidential attention in the second term. Top experts from the Center for Nonproliferation Studies offer recommendations on 9 critical nuclear decisions for the new administration.

--Issues: Curbing Iran’s nuclear program, pushing for a MEWMDFZ, Implementing the nuclear posture review, dealing with missile defense, renewing CTR, pursuing CTBT ratification, advancing the nuclear security summit process, controlling bio weapons, and managing nonproliferation standards through nuclear cooperation trade agreements. http://bit.ly/113llZU

Tweet - @CarnegieNPP: North Korea pushing ahead with new nuclear reactor: IAEA http://t.co/DYflEHFk

A sequestered deterrent - If Washington drags the country over the fiscal cliff, the nuclear arsenal would face budget cuts. Even in that scenario, “we'll still be able to nuke the bejesus out of the Russians,” writes Jeffrey Lewis.

--Lewis shows that the U.S. could preserve its basic approach to nuclear deterrence even under budget sequestration by scrapping the ICBM leg of the triad, deploying fewer nuclear-armed submarines, using the current bomber force and reaping billions in savings from cancelled and postponed nuclear weapons programs. See the numbers at Foreign Policy. http://bit.ly/V58VMY

Tweet - @ArmsControlNow: "Defuse the Exploding Costs of #Nuclear Weapons"… Scaling back on strategic subs, new bombers, ICBMs, and the B61 bomb. http://bit.ly/UukP4D

Nuclear NDAA amendments - The Senate is debating the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. Kingston Reif at Nukes of Hazard has a list of the proposed nuclear amendments to it.

--Included: Kyl and Udall on NNSA reform; Hoven, Tester and Hatch on keeping the triad; Kyl on plutonium pit reuse; Kyl and others on negotiations with Russia; and some New England Republicans on an East Coast missile defense site. http://bit.ly/Yu9Xqe

East Coast missile defense - “There is little reason to be confident that [the proposed East Coast missile defense site] would work any better than the current one on the West Coast,” writes Tom Collina at Arms Control Now. Instead of studying where to build new sites - costing an estimated $25 billion over two decades - Congress should study the failures of the $30 billion system on the West Coast, says Collina. http://bit.ly/Tw3bg3

Japan’s plutonium stocks - Next year, Japan plans to bring online a new reprocessing plant that could allow it to extract eight tons of weapons-usable plutonium per year from spent reactor fuel, enough for nearly 1,000 nuclear warheads. That adds to Japan’s stockpile of 44 tons of plutonium. This “not only creates a tempting target for terrorists, it also sets a precedent for countries around the world to follow suit — and pushes the world toward rampant nuclear proliferation,” write Frank Von Hippel and Masafumi Takubo in The New York Times.

--Instead of building up its plutonium stockpile, Japan and the U.S. should “jointly lead a global effort to reduce existing stocks of separated plutonium by discouraging reprocessing and encouraging safe disposal of already separated stocks,” write the authors. http://nyti.ms/V62Uxb

All-star panel - “Confronting the Nuclear Threat: 50 Years After the Cuban Missile Crisis- Can We Meet the Challenge to Global Security?” David Sanger moderates a discussion with Joe Cirincione, Danielle Pletka, David Sanger, and Graham Allison. At the World Affairs Council of America National Conference. Video here. http://bit.ly/Y70NRC

Israeli BMD - Israel, encouraged by Iron Dome’s success against short-range missiles, is moving to build more powerful interceptor-based defenses - the David’s Sling and the Arrow systems - intended to provide defensive capability against the more advanced missile arsenals held by Hezbollah and Iran. Spencer Ackerman at Danger Room has the story. http://bit.ly/SstQdC

Grand bargain - “It is time for the Obama administration to offer Iran a “grand deal,” writes Seyed Hossein Mousavian. A proposed deal would include capping Iran’s enrichment activities and ensuring Iran provides the maximum level of transparency and cooperation with the IAEA in exchange for sanctions relief. Simultaneously, Iran and the U.S. would commence talks on broader regional issues. Full post at The Christian Science Monitor. http://bit.ly/X4DPcn